1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates systems that process images and, more particularly, to systems that automatically generate a mosaic of individual images and process the mosaic.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Until recently, image processing systems have generally processed images, such as frames of video, still photographs, and the like, in an individual manner. Each individual frame or photograph is typically processed by filtering, warping, and applying various parametric transformations. After processing, the individual images are combined to form a mosaic, i.e., an image that contains a plurality of individual images. Additional image processing is performed on the mosaic to ensure that the seams between the images are invisible such that the mosaic looks like a single large image. The alignment of the images and the additional processing to remove seams is typically accomplished manually by a technician using a computer workstation, i.e., the image alignment and combination processes are computer aided. In such computer aided image processing systems, the technician manually selects processed images, manually aligns those images, and a computer applies various image combining processes to the images to remove any seams or gaps between the images. Manipulation of the images is typically accomplished using various computer input devices such as a mouse, trackball, keyboard and the like. Unfortunately, such manual mosaic construction is time consuming and costly. Furthermore, manual mosaic construction cannot be accomplished in real-time, i.e., the mosaic cannot be constructed as the images are generated by an image source such as a video camera. Consequently, the images in a real-time image generation system are stored for subsequent computer aided processing at a later time.
Since manually generated mosaics are costly, such mosaics do not find much practical use except in publishing applications and image retouching systems. Although mosaics hold much promise, the lack of an automatic mosaic construction system has limited their use.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for a system that automatically generates a mosaic from either pre-existing images or in real-time as the images are generated by an image source. Furthermore, a need exists for systems that utilize the automatically generated mosaic in various practical applications.